Daily Vocabulary Dose by SSCtube (08-02-2018)

Article

A myth that has captured the imagination of the managerial class is that our attention spans are shrinking in this digital era. Last year, the BBC carried a story, “Busting the attention span myth”, which showed that the oft-citied statistic of the average attention span being down from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds now is not based on any real research. Statistic Brain chose not to speak to the BBC reporter, and other specialists who spoke to the reporter had no idea where the numbers came from either. However, the mythical statistic gained traction.

The emergence of clickbait journalism, which is far removed from the purpose of journalism, is one of the biggest disservices of the digital age. Debate has given way to personal slander and interrogation to bubble filters, inquisitiveness has been replaced by echo chambers, and dialogue has got trapped in algorithmic silos. A couple of years ago, the Columbia School of Journalism hosted a conference called ‘The Future of Digital Longform’. Its aim was to look at pressing questions such as: Is form following function, or is the medium cannibalising the message? How can you maintain quality control? How do you make money? The fundamental premise of the conference was the flawed assumption that people’s attention spans would reduce over time.

During this phase of searches for digital revenues and a reductionist approach to journalism, it is heartening to see The Hindu providing an answer to the media’s existential question: how can we stay relevant in this digital avalanche of information? I was pleased when journalism students stopped me to praise the investigative report, “A game of chicken: how India’s poultry farms are spawning global superbugs” (Jan. 31, 2018), a collaborative venture between this newspaper and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

The best part about long-form journalism is that it brings back the importance of writing skills, literary flourishes, and locates the story within the larger framework of our world. It gives space to explore an issue in its entirety. The subject for investigation ranges from town planning to education, from public health to civil aviation. No discipline is taboo. Long-form pieces in The Hinduare not restricted only to the national pages or to the weekly feature called Ground Zero. Every State gets a full page (page 2 on Sundays) to investigate an issue. Investigative journalism here does not cut corners, does not employ devious methods, refrains from using any of the elements of sting journalism, and forces reporters to follow the first principles of journalism. And in doing so, these long-form reports have effectively called out the lie perpetuated by clickbait journalism.

Vocab Dose

Traction: the action of drawing or pulling something over a surface, especially a road or track. संकर्षण
Synonyms: grip, friction, adhesion
Antonyms: slip, slipperinesA primitive vehicle was used in animal traction.